Previous "The Incredible Hero" Moves
As Posted On
The Serial Tree Board

(Based on the character created by Todd R. Williams)

[Edited (slightly) by Roger M. Wilcox]

And the Incredible Hero barely made his dive for cover roll before the 32D6
Area Effect attack went off. This shook him up a bit. 'How,' he
wondered, 'Did Darth Vader ever get the points for a 32D6 Area Effect attack?'

But IH hadn't time to worry about this now. He reached into his pocket
and pulled out his
Incredible-Hero-Acme-all-inclusive-do-it-yourself-boy-this-really-packs-a-whallop-and-we-really-really-mean-it-this-time-for-sure-part-IX
14D6 Energy Blast with one limited use through an OAF that only works versus
villains who are over 7 feet tall and breathe through black triangular breath
screens, and let him have it. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten that Darth
Vader has Missile Deflection.

#

Darth Vader Knocked the nasty missile out of harm's way, even though it was an
Energy Blast and not a missile. "Now, you communistic scum, I am going to
<INHALE> blast your Incredible <EXHALE> guts all over the
<INHALE> street! <EXHALE>"

Since Darth Vader was beginning to sound like an obscene phone call, IH figured
he had to do something quick. [editor's note: I like that logic] He
took out his Incredible Hero earplugs to give him time to think, then
suddenly recalled what he'd paid those 12 gadget points
for. . . .

"Darth Vader," he said in the type of comic strip bubblet that indicates a
soliloquy, "Have a good nutritious breakfast!"

He took out a cube about a half inch on a side and hurled it at the black-caped
monarch. Then, before it reached its target, he took out his squirt gun
and fired half a milliliter of water at it. The tablet expanded to its
full cubic-foot size before Darth could react, and hit him square on his
artificial nose, Stunning him for a full phase.

This was the break IH had been waiting for. He did a half move and
martial kicked the Monolithic Behemoth with his Incredible Hero +1x Martial
Arts Multiplier for 8D6. Unfortunately, Darth had a pretty high Speed,
and had recovered from being Stunned and taken out his light sabre for just
this occasion.

#

But fortunately, the Incredible Hero had a base Defensive Combat Value of 8,
which went up to 9 when he did his martial kick. At that high a DCV,
Darth Vader naturally missed him.

I.H. broke off and made a mad dash for his Incrediblemobile, a S.H.I.E.L.D.
aircar with the labels removed. Taking on Darth Vader would have to take
a step down to his personal safety.

The robot lunged and attacked, but the Incredible Hero's
plus-four-to-DCV-martial-dodge-assist rocket boosters allowed him to escape
even the robot's disgustingly high OCV. I.H. mounted his
Incrediblemobile, flicked the kickstarter with his right foot, and nervously
waited out the three seconds before his engines roared up to full power.

The robot struck again, and on an aircar seat there was no place for the
Incredible Hero to dodge. And the robot's grimy arm had at least a 65
Strength.

Oh well, one good ol' 15 Strength martial block and the robot never touched
him.

I.H. scooted off amidst curses from Darth Vader. "I'll get you!
<INHALE> So help me, <EXHALE> if it takes until the Rebellion is
defeated, <INHALE> I'll get you!! <EXHALE>"

#

"Not if I can get him first!" someone whined in a loud monotone voice.

'I know that voice,' thought the Incredible Hero. There was a high
pitched whine accompanied by a feeling of intense heat, and the robot that was
attacking IH exploded. IH, of course, escaped unharmed. But what
was it that had destroyed the robot?

IH turned around, expecting to see the 6-foot-4 weirdo in the black battle
armor hyperventilating a safe distance away from him. But Darth Vader was
gone, and in his place stood . . . WARDROID! WARDROID, the
monstrous robot from Arduin 1! WARDROID, the product of the son of an
evil genius' best friend's son-in-law, who thought to himself, 'How shall I
spend this weekend? I know, I'll make a killer robot! But what
should I base it on? WARDROID!'

WARDROID, a merciless killing machine, armed with a plasma cannon and deadly
photonic-thermonuclear-antimatter-spoilsport grenades! WARDROID, the
robot that was hunted by the police, the FBI, the IRS, the Dallas Cowboy's
Cheerleaders, and the Jews for Jesus!

WARDROID! IH felt his stomach drop through his large intestine, then his
anal sphincter, hitting the ground with a resounding splop . . .
(GULP). 'What does WARDROID want to kill me for?'

"Because I feel like it," replied WARDROID to IH's unspoken thoughts.

WARDROID aimed his plasma cannon at IH.

#

Slight correction. WARDROID, according to Arduin 1, has the following:

magnetic reflector shield that stops or deflects all normal missiles up to 0.50 calibre.

He is a battle android with a human brain, who has a 14 or less Berserk when
confronted by humans. Other than that, I suppose you could add the plasma
ejectors and photon torpedoes as special treats.

#

. . . WARDROID aimed his plasma cannon at IH . . . but
suddenly, after reading the last message, he realized that he DIDN'T
HAVE a plasma cannon!

This little piece of disorientation gave the Incredible Hero the time he
needed. 'Hmmm . . .' he thought. 'Projectile weapons
won't hurt him, and he probably has enough body Armor to stop any of my martial
combat maneuvers. I can guess that by what he looks like.'

The camera panned back to WARDROID, who was shown to look like a bug-eyed robot
which easily had an Armor Class of 2 from Armor alone. He also looked
like he had a Dexterity A.C. bonus of +2. [editor's note: it says so on
the card]

'But not all ranged weapons are projectiles. . . .' I.H.
reached into his 43rd right suit pocket and pulled out his Incredible Hero 3D6
Missile Deflection Drain through the usual Obvious Accessable Focus.
'Now,' he thought, 'If I can only manage to touch him with it.'

But WARDROID had gotten things straightened out. No plasma
weaponry? Then how about a flame thrower? The Incredible Hero's
suit didn't LOOK like it'd been flame-proofed. . . .

The metal behemoth aimed his
hardened-temperature-resistant-boron-tungsten-alloy-nozzle-connected-to-a-hose-that-went-inside-his-body-to-a-compressed-octane-supply
at our hero on his Incrediblemobile and squeezed the trigger. I.H.
realized, though perhaps too late, that he was too low to zip above the
onslaught of flames. And the flame throver covered a pretty big conic
area.

#

The Incredible Hero, realizing that he couldn't get out of the way of the
flames in time, quickly decided what to do: duck.

Luckily, the flames were not aimed at the floor, and so he survived. He
qucikly charged up, Deflection Drain device in hand, and scored a lucky hit,
following up with a nice, nutritious instant breakfast cube. Scratch one
WARDROID.

"<INHALE> Very good, for a pip squeak hero like you," replied Darth
Badguy, "<INHALE> But now, I am going to . . ."

Whatever he was going to do shall remain an unknown, for Darth had just passed
out from hyperventilation. IH used the opportunity to get the hell out of
there, and so he walked off into the noon sun, knowing that Darth would not
trouble him again, when all-of-a-sudden, . . .

#

. . . rat-a-tat-a-tat!

20 yards ahead of the Incredible Hero, a helicopter equipped with 50 calibre
machine guns rained bullets on a popular café. Startled, IH
froze. The helicopter left the café and proceded towards IH! IH
quickly came to his senses and realized that his car was but a few feet
away. He leapt for the car, but forgot to use his hands when he reached
it. The car exploded (for no apparent reason) only a second later.
LUCKily, IH was thrown clear of the blast. He landed in the ruins of the
café, Stunned, with the helicopter approaching to finish him off.

#

'Oh, no!' IH thought. 'This is a death scene! I never learned how
to go through death scenes without dying! I just scratched off a life and
went back to playing through the scene the normal way! How come every
sentence I'm thinking ends in an exclamation point!'

But I.H. didn't have to worry much, because his car was not his major means of
transportation. Still lying on the Café de Bris, he reached into
his Incredible Hero Portable Hole and pulled out his Incrediblemobile.
The helicopter fired again, but this time the Incredible Hero was behind his
Incrediblemobile, with the side of the Incrediblemobile that had the most DEF
facing the helicopter. The few bullets that hit the vehicle were easily
deflected.

Unfortunately, I.H. had no idea how he was going to get out from behind his
Incrediblemobile, mount it, and start the engines without getting hit —
autofire attacks have a +4 to OCV, you know. 'Ah, I've got it!'

He reached into his Incredible Hero Bag of Holding and pulled out a 2-kilogram
inflatable mockup of himself. A label on the side of the mock-up read,
"Acme Incredible Hero Decoy — guaranteed to get helicopters with autofire
ranged physical killing attacks off your tail or your money back!" He
threw the decoy into the path of the helicopter, where it ran into the chopper
blades and wrecked the 'copter's engine, causing it to explode for no apparent
reason.

"Well, whadaya know," he mused. "It worked!"

Unfortunately, a mere 8D6 armor piercing breakfast blast isn't enough to
destroy a WARDROID! After being taken to Santa Monica County Hospital and
given a good nutritious lunch, WARDROID was up and running with death in
his bulgy eyes again.

#

'Ah, this is the life,' Todd Williams thought as he lounged around at home in
his Secret Identity, plaing a game of Magic Realm with himself. 'No more
lethal battles, no more Darth Vader, no more vehicles that explode for no
apparent reason, and above all, no more WARDRO —'

The east wall of his condo suddenly caved in, and a bug-eyed robot with
tractor treads and a 3-weapon arsenal (plasma cannon extra) lumbered through
the hole.

'Oh, no! It's WARDROID!!!!!!' TRW thought.

The behemoth looked around the room, stared into Todd's eyes for one lethal
moment, and then turned around and headed out again, muttering, "Nope, the
Incredible Hero isn't here. And I could've sworn my Incredible Hero
Finding Compass pointed straight to this place.

"WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!? No lighter?!?!!" WARDROID's eyes glowed a
vengeful red. He put down his flame thrower and took his grenade launcher
from its holster.

#

'Wait a minute!' thought IH, with the usual exclamation point. 'If this
guy's running on RAM (unlike Rachael or BR (ROM)), I can program him to finish
this story.'

#

But the plasma cannon was being charged <similar sounds to when the nuclear
accelerators are powered up> and Todd thought, 'But I have to think of
something fast! At least a quick scramble on his memory!'

So Todd leapt to the side and turned on his
Ultra-high-intensity-Super-Duper-UV light and whipped out his own
Vega-Sirian-design-access-panel-remover and started watching the WARDROID's
EPROMs turn into uselessness. The WARDROID only had one EPROM and (why
didn't the EPROM have a sticker cover? Well, they hadn't thought that the
access panel would ever be removed, naturally, so they skimped and saved a few
bucks) that one had the control program for the plasma cannon, so Todd bought
his minute or two.

#

But the cheapskates had saved the stickers, so IH had no idea of the origin of
them chips. . . . Who were their mothers? Was it TI, or
some women in Portugal? Hearing his mother's voice would certainly stop
the WARDROID — and IH could imitate just about anything, but he had to
know what it was he was imitating first. He would have to take a wild
guess.

Then, since Todd's wall had been caved in, and he didn't particularly like his
condo much anyway (it was a present from his rich brother-in-law), he went out
to look for a new dwelling. As he drove along the street, he spotted a new
realty: "Reality Realtors." Todd stopped his car and went in. As he stepped
inside, he was confronted by the dreaded REAL ESTATE MAN!

The dastardly evil-doer said, . . .

#

. . . "YESSS, what can I DOOO for you?!!"

"I want to know," Todd said in his commanding, Heroic voice, "Where I can find
a new pad."

"A PAD?!" said the Real Estate Man (REM for short). "Did you say, you
want a *PAD* ???!!!!!!?"

'Oh oh,' gulped Todd.

REM reached into his desk and pulled out a two-meter-wide club. On the
end of the club was etched the word PAD. "You want a PAD, you got it!"

He began flailing the PADded club around madly at Todd. Todd, meanwhile,
ducked underneath his desk, took out his Incredible Hero Blender, put his IH
costume in, made a milkshake out of it, drank it, and emerged in his hero
identity three-quarters of a second later. Unfortunately, he emerged
right in front of the PAD, and since it was two meters wide (it got +2 to OCV
from size) IH couldn't possibly dodge out of the way in time.

#

Yes, IH was shrunken through a pad — a 20 dB pad to be precise.
Here's a question: if our hero was filtered through a 20 dB pad, how much
smaller would he come out? (hint: think of it as a power ratio)

#

Hmmm . . . 20 deciBells, huh? If IH was power-ratioed at 20 dB,
he would come out 100 times larger than when he went in.

IH, now shrunk down to 100 times his original size, decided to use his
smallness to his advantage, and hid under the desk. Since Shrinking
increases others' sight perception roll range modifiers, REM lost track of him.

He came on out, all right. Since Shrinking does not subtract from
your Strength, he did a martial kick while REM was looking the other way.
This knocked him down.

The effects of the PAD worn off, IH expanded down to full size. REM got
up and took off his glove, exposing his hand grenade. He pulled
the pin. IH gulped, realizing that he was in deep excrement.

#

Miles away and minutes earlier:

"We found the 'DROID here, your imperial nastiness," said a white-plastic-armor
clad figure to the 7 foot tall villain who breathed through a black triangular
breath screen. "The tapes weren't on him."

"You silly idiot <INHALE>, that's from a different movie!
<EXHALE>" With that, Darth Vader pinched his fingers together and
choked the stormtrooper to death. "What have you found <INHALE>
First Highest Leader of the Stormtroopers number 26? <EXHALE>"

Sweating nervously, 1st # 26 said, "His batteries have run dead and his one
EPROM chip has been ultravioletted to death."

"
Hmmm . . . get some Duracells <INHALE> down from the
ship. Beam some infrared <INHALE> at the EPROM to reprogram it, and
<INHALE> hard-wire him to follow my orders to the <INHALE> letter."

"Dark Lord . . ."

"Yes? <INHALE>"

"Breathe out."

"<EXHALE> Thank you. I was about to explode."

His EPROM was reinstated, his circuits were subtly altered, and the Duracells
powered him up. "Yes-master-what-can-I-do-you-for-"

Machine gun shots ripped through the far wall. They rattled right on in
and poked little bullet-shaped holes in REM's back. The Real Estate Man
tensed, and doubled over. IH carefully put the pin back in the
hand grenade, grateful to whoever it was that had saved his ass.

Then the wall busted open and WARDROID charged on through.
"Well-I-see-my-machine-gun-hit-the-wrong-target-no-matter-you-are-dead-meat-now-anyways-"

"AAH!" yelped IH. He hurdled over the robot (who wasn't expecting it),
slipped into his car without opening the door, unparked (smashing up the two
cars on either side of him), and took off down the road.

#

WARDROID was in hot pursuit. He could go 35, and the speed limit here was
only 30. IH cursed himself for having taken his car instead of his
Incrediblemobile.

The robot aimed his grenade launcher at IH and fired. The grenade arced
through the air, crashed in through the rear car window, and landed in the back
seat, failing to go off. WARDROID cursed in machine language and
continued.

IH picked up the grenade and was about to throw it back when he remembered that
WARDROID's magnetic reflector shield would stop it cold. But this gave
him an idea. 'Reflector shield, huh?' He turned on his Incredible
Hero Access-any-existing-computer car computer and began hacking. 'If I
can just tap into the Library of Congress' records . . . there!
That's the number I wanted!'

He logged off, went into BASIC mode, threw the grenade at WARDROID, and started
typing in an I/O port command.

IH returned home, dropped off his car, and took in a nice gob of Santa Monica
County air.

#

'. . . Aah, what a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky!'

Unfortunately for the Incredible Hero, there was something else in the
sky to make up for the absence of clouds. . . . A big,
cylindrical, yellow-orange something that plummetted to the ground not 100
meters from IH and landed with a "plop." This interested the Incredible
Hero.

'This interests me,' IH thought.

The thing, who was not damaged from the fall, immediately came to life, opening
its big eyes and its tooth-filled maw and letting out its first dull roar of
the day. It propped itself up on thundrously loud yet ridiculously small
legs and began lumbering toward our Hero.

"Oh, no!" screamed IH. "IT'S THE CHEESE MONSTER!"

Yes, it was the Cheese Monster! Leaving a trail of foreign and
domestic cheeses in its path! Crushing the street below under its
enourmous weight! Crumbling buildings out of the way since he was over forty
meters in diameter! Ending each sentence fragment with an exclamation
point!

The patrons on the street chanted in horror: "NO ONE COULD POSSIBLY
SURVIVE THAT THING!"

#

IH looked into the sky and recalled a story he had read a long, long time ago
on a BBS that wasn't that far away and then snapped back to pay attention to
this new menace. He said to himself, "I need a vacation, this superhero
business is tiring!"

So IH flicked on his Todd Williams Custom Mini-Size maxi-thrust flying suit and
headed west. He then noticed a small island after about a half an hour
and landed. "Ah, Hawaii!" he exclaimed. "Hopefully the Cheese Monster got
stuck somewhere in Santa Monica where he won't hurt much! I'll fondue the
sucker in a week or two! Ah, look at the women!"

#

Yes, I.H., look at all the women. They were some beauties, too.
Their hula muscles were all quite well developed, and since this was Hawaii's
Topless Island, they wore nothing but grass skirts, so Todd could see the other
major attributes of the women that were well developed as well.

About half of these Incredibly sexy women looked like they would probably do a
"Conan the Barbarian" on anyone they seduced.

The other half of the women, though, seemed like fair game. Todd pulled
out his Incredible Hero Acme suave-and-debonair +10 charisma musk and sprinkled
it left-wingedly over his body (especially over the Most Important
Extremity). He approached a girl that reminded him of a girl named Joy
that his good buddy Roger M. Wilcox once knew, and introduced himself.

"Hello, I'm Todd R. Williams."

"HI," she bellowed in contrabass. "I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO MEET THE
INCREDIBLE HERO."

'But that's my Secret Identity!' Todd thought. 'How could she know?'

"THAT'S SIMPLE," she replied to his thoughts. Unzipping her skin from
between her mammary banks, she stepped out over 40 meters across and
yellow-orange. Santa Monica evidently failed to stick the Cheese Monster.

#

'Yikes!' thought the Incredible Hero. 'This monster is going to make
cheesecake out of me if I don't get out of here fast!'

"CHEESECAKE INDEED," shouted the Cheese Monster, reaching for IH. But IH
was in the air and flying away. The Cheese Monster cleared its throat, a loud
and nauseating process, and spit an enormous globule of cheese at IH.
Splorch!

'Yecch!' IH flew on. 'I know where I'll go! Japan.'

Several hours later, IH found himself on an island in the South Pacific,
hopelessly lost. 'Damn! I knew I should have taken that left turn
on Sunset.'

What IH didn't know was that he was indeed very close to
Japan. . . .

IH looked for people on the island. None.

What IH didn't know was that tourists weren't allowed on the island on weekdays
. . . much too dangerous . . . and the monsters have large
appetites. . . .

'Nuts! That goon's still following me.' The Incredible Hero looked
down to the island. A sign read, "Monster Island — keep off —
trespassers will be stepped on."

"Aha!" exclaimed IH. "I've got it!" He pulled out his Incredible
Hero 25000-cycle Godzilla call, and blew. An inaudible screech whistled
ever the landscape, and was returned with a cheery, "Ne-EE! Neow,
doodoloodoloo!"

"WHAT?" CW belched. "OH, NO, IT'S —"

Godzilla poked his head over the top of monster island and breathed a stream of
blue, steamy morning breath at the Cheese Monster. CM turned into a
grilled cheese sandwich and was destroyed until another 500 messages, or his
mother comes back, whichever comes first.

Yes, a love-crazed Godzilla was approaching from the north. Monster X was
comming [sic] from the east. There were monsters to the north!
Monsters to the south! Monsters to the east! So you know what that meant?

There were no monsters to the west!

While he was running away, IH thought about something. This was a long,
slow process, but he suddenly realized he should watch out for that tree, and
quickly veered right. Ten of the monsters didn't react in time, and had a
pileup. Then, IH realized something — he still had his flight suit
on!

But what they can't was never said, because one of the flying monsters' yell
made IH realize he was being followed.

#

He quickly thought to himself, 'This guy can fly too. How in the world am
I going to get away from him?' He then reached the rooftop where he
quickly landed, hoping the monster wouldn't keep going much like his
unintellingent friends who hadn't noticed the tree in the previous
bulletin. Unfortunately, this guy was the brains of the monster "gang";
he also stopped and landed. IH spotted a fly swatter on the ground and
thought to himself, 'Well . . . it's worth a shot.'

He raced over and picked up the fly swatter. The monster, in his own
language, said to himself, "Shoot! This guy's nuts! I had better
teach him a lesson. This is no Japanese monster movie, you know."

IH, using his super speed (he does have super speed, doesn't he?) ran
toward the monster with the fly swatter held up high, ready for the whack of
the century, when all-of-a-sudden the monster grabbed the fly swatter and
started swinging IH in a circle much like what one does with a cat.

'Wait a minute!' IH thought. 'This gives me an idea!' He released
the fly swatter and began to fly. The monster followed him. Now it
was becoming a follow-the-leader contest. IH swerved to the left
. . . the monster did the same. IH flew between two buildings
inches apart . . . the monster squeezed through. IH flew toward
a building and at the last moment pulled up . . . the monster almost
pulled up, but unfortunately ended up going right through the building.
IH continued through the air until he arrived at the local airport.

'No airport in the universe would give a monster landing clearence,' he thought
to himself as he proceeded to land on the runway. The monster also made
the attempt, but, in the end, got smashed in by a 747 that was trying to take
off.

"Whew! That was close," said IH. But all-of-a-sudden one of the baggage
cars lost its load (they're set up like trains). The load of luggage was
headed directly toward IH.

#

IH raced toward the baggage with O.J. Simpson's speed and Ace's dextrosity
[sic]. He jumped over the assorted Samsonites, and cleared them in front
of the Hertz office. Then he remembered: the people in the 747 had to be
saved. . . .

IH caught a cab to the end of the runway and observed the mass of metal.
It had actually been a 707, with the initials KAL on the side. It was
burning out of control. IH put on his Incredible Fire Suit and forced his
way into the blaze.

#

IH looked carefully at the wreckage. Was it a 747 or a 707?
No! It was a DC-9!!

'What am I doing,' IH thought, 'Trying to save the passengers of a
DC-9??? Anybody who'd fly a DC-9 deserves to fry! I'll check on the
monster first.'

The Unnamed Monster (UM for short) had a DC-9 shaped hole in his chest.
He was also on fire and didn't have enough resistant Energy Defense to take the
damage. He also had no resistant energy Damage Reduction or Regeneration,
so he was just about done for. UM wouldn't last 'till the end of this
mesage.

"THAT'S RIGHT," boomed the voice. "YOU WERE WRECKING MY RADAR SWEEP OF
THIS PLACE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE FOR AN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER TO
HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT WHICH BLIPS ARE U.F.O.s AND WHICH ARE SUPERHEROES?!?!?

"OF COURSE YOU DON'T! YOU'RE NOT AN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER IN YOUR SPARE
TIME! BUT I AM, AND IT IS I WHO HAVE PLACED YOU UNDER MIND CONTROL; FOR I
AM . . .

* * * T H E C O N T R O L L E R * * *

!"

#

As IH stood dumbfounded and unable to move, a voice came on over the PA
system. "This is Reagan! Get back to work or I'll fire you all and
replace you with inexperienced idiots!"

The Controller suddenly seemed a lot less powerful. "Ok," he replied
meekly.

#

That threat dealt with, IH moved on. After about fifteen minutes of
flying, he neared a great jungle. 'Looks like a nice place to eat my
picnic lunch,' he thought, and came in for a landing.

As he was laying out his spread in a clearing, thumping footsteps came
near. Looking up, IH saw a man wearing a leopard skin riding on an
elephant. A theme song played:

"George, George, George of the Jungle . . . on his elephant Shep!"

#

"If there's anything I can't stand," the Incredible Hero said, "It's a Tarzan
imitation who takes three days to think!"

IH was ready to deal with his friendly neighborhood king of the jungle.
He had taken his picnic lunch out of his pocket — essentially one of his
instant breakfasts with the word "LUNCH" stamped on it — but he had not
yet added the necessary two drops of water that would expand it to full full
size (about 30 times bigger in all directions). He threw the compact food
capsule at George, then took out his
Incredible-hero-acme-do-it-yourself-50000-pounds-per-souare-inch-boy-this-really-packs-a-whallop
water pistol and fired at his former lunch. The capsule expanded and hit
George square, knocking him off his doggy Shep.

"Wait a minute," IH responded to my last comment, "I thought Shep was an
elephant!"

"Shep is doggy!" George wailed while still lying on his back in the
picnic-grounds mud. "Big gray peanut-loving poochy! Sick 'im,
Shep!"

'Oh no,' IH thought, 'I left my Incredible Hero anti-aircraft magnitude
Elephant Eliminator ray back at home. Oh well, Shep is a doggy so it
wouldn't have worked anyway.'

#

"Nee-eeeeeeh!" said Shep. <Tromp> <tromp> <tromp>
<ding> <tromp>.

Ih had just managed to dive to the side in time when he heard "No more
laserdiscs!" screech out from the peanut gallery.

"Huh?" IH replied. "Who said that?" Taking out his
anti-peanut-gallery disintegration blaster, he quickly took care of the unknown
voice.

But now IH still had Shep to worry about. Then he realized, 'Hey, Shep is
a big peanut loving doggie, right? So he probably has lots of peanuts all
galleried up in his tummy. . . . Well, maybe this will
work.'

Zzzzaaapppp.

There was the front of Shep.

There was the back of Shep.

There was no stomach holding the two pieces together.

<plop> <plop>

But then . . .

#

. . . the two pieces got up again! They formed into a single
blob, and together made an incredible Incredible-Hero-eating monster! The
monster was immune to disintegration, fire, cold, lightning, energy attacks,
any mind-influencing anything, gravity, light, dark, water, and air. It
moved toward IH —

Then, in a mighty flash, a little three-inch-tall yellow Play-Doh dog
materialized. This frightened the blob so much that it ran away, leaving
a gaping hole in the jungle where it went.

"You are strong," said Darth Vader as IH got 33,000 more points on his
Incredible-Hero-Life-Score-Indicator, "But you will not survive. Beam me
up, Scotty!"

With a spectacular flash of light, nothing happened. "We need more
dilithium crystals, Captain," Scotty proceded to tell Darth Vader. "All
we can do is produce those neat special effects . . . not much else."

'I know what this guy needs,' IH thought as he pulled out a gallon container of
Listerine mouthwash.

In the meantime, a businessman approached and said, "Good afternoon, Mr.
Hero. I'm from the EPA. Has anyone been beaming around here?"

#

"Yes," said the Incredible Hero.

"How many people have been beaming around here?"

"I'm not at liberty to say. . . ."

"And may I see where they beamed to?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"You didn't use the magic word."

"And what is the MAGIC word?"

#

"The magic word is 'FCC'."

"NO! Not them! Their paperwork is worse than the EPA, and they have
only one hunt-and-peck typist who is shared with the State Department!"
exclaimed the EPA person, who promptly broke out in a run.

But IH's luck wasn't going too well; those words caused the appearence of a
scroll, which read:

"Special Temporary Authority.
"From July 31 to August 2, Midnight to 6 a.m., permission granted to
conduct tests at no more than 3kW, not to exceed any parameter of
construction permit, file # 245230254232aa2305aAA2054GREREEA000223200ss0-1"

'What the hell does that mean?' wondered IH. 'Must be some sort of
powerful spell.' So he read it aloud. . . . Just as
he pronounced the dash-one, the planet started to break apart.

#

"Damn!" he exclaimed. "I knew the planet couldn't take 3
kilowatts! I've **GOT** to do something!"

Ignoring the fact that his last sencence was Wonder Woman's trademark, he read
the scroll backwards. That is, he would have read it backwards if there
had been any writing there to read. IH alarmingly recalled that scrolls
fade from the page as they're read.

IH thought, 'The guy who designed scrolls'd never get to work building data
storage systems! He should have designed scroll memory to be a
little less volatile.'

The Earth was still shaking apart, though . . .

#

. . . when another scroll appeared that said, "You have violated your
permit with respect to law # 457677$'7vn64 sec. gjig5932vv-2, subpart
894854-gh56, clause 95834ujgxyzzy-5, sentence xvii-iv" IH took one look
at it and nearly freaked out. "AGGGHHHH! POLITICIANS!!"

Yes, the ground stopped shaking as The Politician came up through it! The
Politician, who could prevent anything you tried to do! The Politician,
who always used such terms as "The party of the first part in conjunction with
the second party of two parts" followed by "signhereplease"!

#

He thought for a moment, and finally did the only thing he could do. "If
it was magic that caused all of this, then magic must be the one thing that can
get rid of this." He finally came up with the one magic word that he knew
would get rid of The Poltitican. He climbed onto a rock and in the
loudest of voices said:

"T A X A U D I T!"

The Politician instantly fled for his life, going through the hole that the
blob had made a few messages earlier. He was now alone.

"What am I going to do now?!" he said to himself. "There's nobody
here. What shall I do?" Then, suddenly, another magical word came
to mind. He figured it was worth using. He prepared himself and
said,

"Y O H O!"

. . . and then he head-spinned and he was elsewhere.

#

Yes, he was elsewhere, but he was not on Treasure Island. Nor was he in
any of the Snott Adams (a.k.a. Scott Adama) ADVENTs thet he could
remember. He was standing on a silvery pipe somewhere beneath the ground.

'Oh oh,' he thought. 'A silver pipe in a sewer. There's another
pipe above my head, and below me there's a pipe broken by the word POW.
Any minute now — there they come!'

Two tortoises marched out after him. But they were slow (that's a common
property of torti) and despite the Slipperiness of the floor, IH was still
Speed 5. He ran away from the tortoises until he reached the entrance to
a big pipe that looked like a reject from "Cycle Jump." It was too
small for him to enter but was just the right size for tortoises, flies, crabs,
etc..

It was then he noticed a coin resting on top of the pipe. He picked it
up.

"A krugerand!" he shouted. "With the price of gold today, these things
are worth about 800 bucks!"

But he'd spent too much time looking at the coin, and now a menacing fireball
was headed straight for him.

#

Using Missile Deflection (does he have that?), IH dodged the fireball and
looked down the tunnel. There was a figure standing at its end. "I
am the Numismatist! I have the power to melt down coins, and the stamina
to pay Incredible amounts of money for commemorative sets! Now, GIMMIE
BACK MY KRUGERAND!!"

#

Yes, it was Luigi, with the crabs.

But by this time, the tortoises had flipped over too many times, and were
charging the two of them. One of them was red; the other was a dead
Ringling for him.

#

Ringling? "What a CIRCUS this has become," IH said aloud, looking
at the tortoises and coins; he soon regretted using this terminology, as the
tunnel network swirled and became a tent, with all sorts of kids yelling and
dripping ice cream cones on unsuspecting adults. He then noticed he was
inside some sort of enclosure, holding a whip and a chair.

Something growled behind him.

#

He turned around and saw a thirty-foot lion hungrily stare him in the eyes. He
lost twenty pounds in that instant.

"Stay back, I'm warning you!" IH made feeble gestures with the whip and
the chair.

Surprisingly, the lion cringed. "No, no, don't hurt me! I'm just
making a living! I don't know anything, I just work here! I
was only following orde—"

"Say," IH cut him off, "Didn't I see you in the Wizard of Oz?"

The lion thought for a second, then: "Nope, never heard of the movie.
Wizard of Gaea maybe, but not the Wizard of Oz."

'Aha,' thought IH. 'He's read John Varley's "Titan" books
too. . . .'

"Actually, I was just a normal, average, everyday lion until I fell into a vat
of Insta-Grow plant food. I've been 30 feet tall ever since."

The Mistress of Metrics stood poised and ready. Her sleeves flopped down,
revealing the complex bio-mechanics that governed her natural meterstick
generators. There was a Berserk look in her eye.

'Oh oh,' the Incredible Hero thought fast, 'Gotta think fast.' He dropped
the whip and chair. He looked through his arsenal; nope, everything was
marked in British units, even the 1/2.54 inch metal bolt on his Incredible
Garage Door Opener.

'Aha, I've got it!'

"Cubic meter!" he shouted. "Newton! Pascal!"

"Noooooooo!" Meter Maid screamed. "SI units! The one thing more
powerful than I am! I must escape!"

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the infamous Meter Mobile (one of
those meter maid's golf carts with an 800 cm3 turbocharged,
supercharged, fuel injected engine), and shot off.

"Oh," said the cowardly 30' lion, "Thank you for saving my life!"

"Saving your life?" stammered IH. I was saving my life
there! I'd just as gladly have used you as a living shield for her meter
sticks. My code against killing (20 pts.) doesn't count toward giant
mutant lions!"

That made the lion angry.

'Oh oh,' IH thought. 'This looks BAD. Real BAD.'

#

As IH was imagining every particle in his body exploding at the speed of light,
the lion charged. IH dodged, but then realized that he was at one end of
the cage and the chair and whip were still at the other end. Or rather,
were, as the lion was ripping them to shreds.

'Oh great. Now what?' IH thought. That lion was destroying his
stuff. Looking around, IH realized that there wasn't a top to this cage,
so he quickly said, "Go-go Gadget legs."

#

. . . and all-of-a-sudden, a giant white parachute came out of his
hat, completely ruining his plans of escape.

#

Then our hero said, "Damn! Another foul-up! Always sumtin'!" Then IH
thought, 'Hey, I got it now,' and said, "Go-go Gadget parachute!"
. . . And our hero shot straight up in the air as the lion did a 10
point gainer onto the floor of the cage.

"GGGGRRRRRRRROOOOOWWWWWWLLLLLLLL!!" went the lion, "I'LL EAT YOU YET!"

IH, now being a smart ass, said, "Eat this!" and dropped a 35 pound cat into
the cage. Now IH thought, 'Let's see if he gets this joke.'

[editor's note: I sure don't]

Just as our hero recovered from laughing at the stupid lion, he was suddenly
bombarded with two tons of shit. IH, in realizing he was now down to 150
points, screamed, "Oh, my God! No! It's the Nebraska Turd Bird!!"

#

IH fumbled through his Bag of Holding. "Sling shot, exploding Certs, Acme
Automatic Road Runner Disintegrator that Does Not Work on Roadrunners, liquid
helium — damn! Where did I put that? Aha, here it is!"

He pulled out a pistol that said "Battlestar CRAP-tica" on the side. "That bird
is toast!"

IH looked up. The Nebraska Turd Bird had swooped around and was coming in
for another attack. He would not survive another fecal deluge like the
first one (two tons of anything can be quite devastating).

"Come on, where's the right setting? . . ." IH nervously
whirled the dial past about twenty settings. Wait! Was that one
that just flipped by the one he wanted? "No, damn, that's Philadelphia
cream cheese." He had no desire to attack food at this point.

There it was! He found the right setting: "Nebraska Turd
Birds." But the bird had already begun to drop its load.

#

<Gulp>

Quickly turning the dial one more nob, wondering why it was now taking time to
switch these settings when it never does in comic books, he found the setting
he wanted: "Nebraska Turd Birds' Turd." He fired (OCV 9, DCV 0, needs a
17 or less).

<ZZzzzaaapppPP>

Well, all two tons somehow managed to get disintegrated. "Now then, where
was that other setting," he said as he tried to dial it back; but then he
remembered: the wizard he had gotten this from said that you couldn't turn the
dial back except at midnight. And his watch said 1:30 pm.

#

So our incredibly Incredible Hero had to settle for the last setting on the
dial, the stay puft neutralizer/melter/barbecuer/phaser setting. As he
was setting the dial IH wondered what a stay puft
neutralizer/melter/barbecuer/phaser might do to a giant bird such as this.

The bird turned for a third attack, and as our hero was about to pull the
trigger he noticed that the bird was coming in considerably lower than it did
for the other two attacks. IH fumbled his gun, wondering if the bird
would dare to shit again, and the bird snatched him off the ground with its
feet and flew away from the hungry lion. IH thought to himself, 'I'm
gonna be bird feed!'

#

'That's it!' IH thought, 'Bird feed!'

IH pulled on some of the crucial feathers on the underside of the bird, causing
him to bank and head toward a junior high school. "If those kids think
feeding seagulls is fun, wait'll they get a load of this!"

All-of-a-sudden, the kids ranging from 7th to 9th grade (6th to 9th in other
states) started forming a group in the center of the lunch area, bringing with
them a bird's delight. . . . Peanut butter & jelly
sandwiches . . . cans of fruit juice . . . and —

IH quickly though, 'Hum, now I know there's an anti-175-point-energy-blast
setting on this camera!' But by the time our hero looked up from his
camera, he was being trounced upon by the g.o. rilla. This sight rendered
IH unconscious.

IH woke up to the bleating of a sheep in his ear and wondered, 'Did I fall
asleep in the barn again?'

As he opened his eyes, all he saw was a grinning gorilla. The gorilla
said, "Your eyes won't shine, and your teeth won't grit, but some of this
energy blast ass is what you're gonna get!"

IH thought, 'I knew I shouldn't have plucked that bird!' Then it finally
hit him as to how to get out of this mess. He shouted, "Go-go Gadget
dildo!"

This gave the gorilla a positive energy blast cancelling out his negative
energy blasts, shorting him out for three messages. 'Now to untie
myself,' our hero thought.

#

IH pushed his STR and broke out of the gorilla's leather bonds.
Fortunately, that last snooze had put him AFTER MIDNIGHT again, and he could
reset his laser pistol. The first setting just happened to be "Kinky
Gorillas."

IH aimed and fired. A blue bolt, accompanied by Jonh Dykstra sound
effects and Glen A. Larson music, leapt out and enveloped the shorted
simmian. The energy coalesced over its body like a thing out of Star Trek
the Motion Sickness — er, Picture — and when it rescinded all that
remained was a six-foot-high piece of toast.

IH ignored the pun. "Probably Texas toast," he said.

IH returned his attention to his hand laser. "'Can only go through the
settings one way.' Why does that remind me of a book of infinite
spells? Don't worry, it resets at midnight."

But now something very peculiar struck him. "Does it magically reset at
midnight Pacific time or midnight Eastern time?" he mused. "If I took it
off Earth, would it reset at all? And what if we went on daylight savings
time? Hoo boy, somebody's really gonna have to tell me what this whole
midnight thing is all about!"

"I'm a little fuzzy on this midnight thing," a voice said from behind. IH
turned and was taken aback by the sight of someone Bill-Murray-looking wearing
a big, bulky backpack. Or perhaps it was a flame thrower. Or a jet
pack. Or a manpack surface-to-air missile. Or an unlicensed
man-portable particle accelerator. He couldn't be sure in the dim light
of the gorilla's barn.

"What's MIDNIGHT?" the man asked.

"Imagine," explained IH, "All clocks as we know them chiming twelve times at
the speed of light."

"THAT would be BAD."

"NOT AS BAD AS THIS!" shouted something non-corporeal in the Darkness.

"Oh oh — DUCK!" the man yelled as IH ducked and the man pulled out his
gun (attatched to his backpack) and turned on his positron generator. An
orange, thundering, THX-sound antimatter beam leapt from his gun.

"Hey," inquired the Incredible Hero, "Can I join you guys?"

#

"Sure," said the Bill Murray Person. "Do you have an unlicensed nuclear
accelerator on ya?"

"Okee dokee," IH said as he aimed the device and shot at the green phantasm.

"Watch it!" said the BM Person. "Don't cross the beams!"

"Why not? It's ONLY a nuclear accelerator . . . it's only
atomizing everything in a 200 foot radius. What's so bad about crossing
the beams?"

"Imagine every Twinkie in America exploding at the speed of light."

"Will that happen if we cross the beams?!?" asked IH.

"No, but the thought of that should scare the shit out of you and cause you to
listen to what I'm saying. Now either you listen to me, or I'll knock you
off 10 or 20 points. Alright?" said the BM person with a slightly evil
look on his face.

"No problem," said IH, "But what about that bull behind you?"

"Don't give me that 'bull' shit. I've heard that one before."

#

"No, I mean it, there really is a bull behind you."

Bill Murray casually turned around and gasped. Half a ton of angry pot
roast was staring him in the eye.

"Er, I'll take care of the ghost, Mr. . . . uh . . ."

"Hero. Incredible Hero. THE Incredible Hero."

"Mr. The Incredible Hero. YOU take care of Ferdinand here."

Bill Murray and the ghost positron-tangoed off into the 3 a.m. sunset, leaving
IH alone with only his unlicensed nuclear accelerator standing between him and
the bull.

He was about to make toast out of the bull when he remembered something.

"This positron gun is a Killing Attack! I have a Hatred of Killing
Attacks; I can't use this."

Fifteen spent experience points later, he found that he could indeed use
this. He pointed the nozzle at the bull. "Don't worry, it's only
antimatter, it won't do anything to you."

He squeezed the trigger. An orange beam threw the bull out the broad side
of the barn.

"Wait a millicenton, aren't I violating somebody's third law of motion?
That bull — who has about ten times my mass — was thrown a city
mile, but I wasn't even pushed. Oh well, that's Knockback for ya!

The next day, it was a bright and beautiful morning (as quoted from Todd R.
Williams, IH himself). Todd was in his civvies soaking up some of that
Santa Monica air,

- - - W H E N S U D D E N L Y - - -

#

— an RTD bus came screaming by. IH looked at the enormous cloud of
black soot following the muffler. He whipped out his Incredible Soot Suit
and jumped into it just in time. He felt the particles hitting the
dhisposable [sic] suit, and waited for the ashes to settle.

When the Killer Bus was gone, he climbed out. He put the suit in his
ectoplasmic retainer box, which he was still carrying from his close brush with
the Bill Murray Person, and dropped the whole mess into the nearest corner
mailbox.

'I'm going to have to infiltrate the bus system,' thought IH. He quickly
dressed in a loud pinstriped suit and grabbed a briefcase. He put on his
nose filters and waited for the next bus to come.

He didn't hove long to wait. In under a week, it pulled up to the
stop. IH pulled his token out of his pocket and boarded the RTD. As
he got on, the Bus Driver gave him a funny look. "Hey," he said, "You're
not a commuter!"

"What?" said IH. "How can you tell?"

"Your suit isn't loud enough, and the leather in your suitcase is real."

"Oh."

"So," said the Bus Driver, "You are obviously someone bent on the total
destruction of the RTD line. My friends here don't like that. GET
HIM, GIRLS!"

Suddenly, a bunch of old ladies started bashing IH with their umbrellas and
canes.

"Oh, no," saih IH, "I'm going to have to . . .

#

". . . do a quick succession of Martial Blocks!"

And the Incredible Hero went into his routine. This was just like the
Bassai kata, anyway. Upper level rising block, middle level hooking
block, down block — whoops, that one was in too close! A quick
sword hand block saved IH from a lethal cane strike.

'Now,' he thought.

Front kick. Roundhouse kick. Side elbow smash. Side-thrust
kick (ooh, heard some bones crack on that one!). One front punch later,
all the old ladies were soundly defeated. Panting, IH aprroached the
driver with his positron gun in hand.

"Take this bus to Cuba!" he demanded.

"Sorry," the driver replied, "That ain't on my route."

"Well, then take me to RTD central!"

"That I can do!" the BD replied. He closed the door, gunned the engine,
and turned on the diesel turbocharger. A cloud of black smoke from his
rear choked the pedestrians behind in fallout.

Two minutes later, they were at RTD central. IH gave the driver a whiff
of Batgas, then climbed out to complete his master plot.

The Incredible Hero entered the building, and approached a counter that had
"CLERK" written on it in meter-high Gothic lettering. He took out his
Acme Incredible Hero Attention Getting Grenade, and threw it at the clerk's
counter.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BLAMMMMMMM<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

"May I help you?"

"Yes, you may! I'm the Incredible Hero!"

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I work for the EPA," our hero lied, "And I wanna check the emission systems of
the RTD busses! They're crap!"

The clerk turned one of the lenses of his glasses 90 degrees. "Do you
have a warrant?"

The Incredible Hero pulled out a piece of paper across the top of which was
written WARRANT! (printed by Incredible Hero Mfg. Co.). "Yes, I have a
warrant."

The clerk lowered his voice a couple of octaves. He sounded just like Dr.
Claw. "I'M AFRAID I CAN'T LET YOU THROUGH," he rumbled as clear beams
sprang from his glasses.

Our Incredible Hero thought, 'Good, now I'll have a chance to get away.'
Just as the Meterish Maid began to wreak
Havok (pun intended) on the Clerk,
IH started creeping toward the door. As he reached the door, a thunderous
voice shouted, "Hold it!! Where the hell do you think you're going?
And who said I was through with you?!"

IH replied, "Well, I figgered since your hands were full I'd get out of your
way."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" shouted the Maid.

Our bolognaous hero said in a modest voice, "Well, I'm just a 175 point super
hero, that's all," as he kicked a small rock from side to side.

He aimed, shot, and watched Meter Maid fall to the floor having intergalactic
orgasmic convulsions. 'That should keep her occupied for a while,' our
hero thought; "And I'll be back to deal with you later!" he said to the clerk.

Our hero ran outside and took to the air as he shouted, "Go-go Gadget
copter!" As he flew over Santa Monica, he flew into a dark cloud that
seemed to hover over the city. 'Hm . . . kinda smells like that
Cheese Monster I got rid of earlier; wonder if there could be two
. . .'

Then out of nowhere, a voice shouted at him, "No, I'm the Tracer imposter
monster, and don't you try any of those Dig Dug Killer tactics on me as I have
my anti Dig Dug Killer tactics raygun with me!"

Yes, the Incredible Hero was up against Tracer Prime. Tracer Prime was
just a mild-mannered evil scientist who had almost created a Force Field
generator when Tracer came along
and ruined everything. Feeling in a nasty mood, the mad scientist stole
the Tracer armor-generator chestbox and copied it.

He made one for himself, clamped it to his chest, and was endowed with all the
powers of Tracer when he pushed the button. There was one
difference. When he copied the Tracer armor, he made a modification;
Tracer Prime could use his energy blast at range.

And with a 75-point ADDK raygun, IH was toast. . . .

#

And being toast, he was formatted by Benny Hill's Tandon drive.

#

And with this magnetic ability of his, he quickly dispatched Tracer Prime (who
had a Vulnerability to magnetic attacks). With that, he felt like saying,
"All in a days work. What could possibly go wrong?" when something went
wrong. A plane was headed right for Century City on a collision
course. What could our hero do now?

#

He COULD fly into the air and push the airplane, causing it to go in another
direction, saving thousands of people and making him a
hero. . . . nah, too simple. . . .

#

IH charged after the incoming plane. 'If it crashes into the Twin
Towers,' he thought, 'Millions of innocent dollars will be killed! I have
to save our architecture. . . .'

This wouldn't be much of a problem, actually. Passenger jets only fly
subsonic (unless they're in Europe), so the Incredible Hero Sonic
Aleron/Elevator Anticrash Altering Device should do the trick.

If it were a passenger jet. As IH approached, he noticed its arcane
design and the black sphere of energy surrounding it. There was a symbol on its
side which had a picture of the craft inside a circle, stamped with the letters
SGA.

Yes, it was STARFIGHTER — the hypercharge-powered starship from the game of the same name. Since anything can happen in comic books, IH didn't bother wondering how it got here (they have time travel, you know). IH only had one thought:

'I've

GGGG OOO TTTTT
G O O T
G GGG O O T
G G O O T
GGG OOO T

to stop that thing!'

#

'They want to know who I am, eh?' IH figured as he received a beacon
request. 'Well, I'll tell them.'

Meanwhile, the Incredible Hero was up against the almighty force of the
SC-78503 Starfighter, alone and confused in Landbase Seven. "What will I
do?"

— BANK ACCOUNT TOO LOW —

"Oh no, I forgot to go to 4 or 6! Damn!"

GOOD HUNTING! <D> TO DRIVE . . .

VooowoooowoooowoooowoooowoooowoooowoooowooVooowoooowooowooom

(Tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic)

LUCKily, IH realized that the SC-78503 before him had to be a
Marauder. Pushing 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0 together he attained a
velocity of 255 [editor's note: relative to what?], and with his cones shifted
to "WAVE WEAPON 40" he fired three mighty wave blasts at the quickly retreating
Marauder. [editor again: they take 7 hits to destroy]
Pksshweeeeeeeesh. There's 1344 credits!

Just as his sphincter muscles started to relax, IH looked up and saw thet the
moon was losing altitude. Fast.

#

But as he approached, he realized, "That's no moon, that's a . . .
hmm, well, it sure isn't a moon." He tried to move away from it, but
discovered that he was caught in a tractor beam of some sort.

#

'Oh, no!' thought IH. 'It's the Closing Ceremonies Laser show!'

He searched his Incredible pockets for his
Incredible-Souvenir-Closing-Ceremonies-Color-Coded-Flashlight.

#

His flashlight came in red and blue, just like Darth Vader's and Ben Kenobi's
light sabers.

And with that space station — er, moon — coming up, IH would
probably be seeing one of the aforementioned characters very soon.

And unfortunately, a light saber was NOT an energy blast.

#

He switched the flashlight to blue, and was able to slip out amongst the
crowds.

#

But then a voice thundered down from the ship. "People of Earth, we came
for revenge. Our first leader was destroyed by your Tracer, the second by
your Incredible Hero. We want this killing to stop, so please give us the
body of the Incredible Hero or else."

And in unison, at the top of its lungs, the crowd yelled:

"W H O ' S H E ? ! ?"

#

"He's the Earthling with the Energy Blast," said the ship.

IH, thinking for once, quickly undressed at Incredible Speed, and donning an
ABC jacket, made his way to the media booth. There he found the dreaded
. . . McKAY!!!! Grabbing the loathsome villain by the
headphones, IH quickly stuffed him into the Incredible suit.

#

One of the aliens in the ship ran up to the leader on the microphone and said,
"Captain! Our scanners have located him! He's in the media booth,
but I think he's had some sort of plastic surgery. He looks like that
boring person we were watching on the way over here."

"Very good! Aim the
Incredible-Hero-Instantaneous-Atomizer-and-All-Around-Death-and-Destruction
device at him and fire at will!"

At that moment, a giant set of crosshairs were aimed at the pseudo Incredible
Hero (a.k.a. McKay). It looked like this:

─┬─

╔═╪═╗

├─╫─┼─╫─┤

╚═╪═╝

─┴─

#

'Good!' thought the Incredible Hero, 'That's one less bad sports caster I'll
have to worry about.'

But the aliens weren't through. "We killed the Incredible Hero, now let's
finish off McKay!"

'Oh oh,' thought IH, escaping from the ABC clothes. But the aliens
already had him locked on target with their Death Star ray, the same weapon
they vaporived the pseudo-IH (McKay) with.

"Wait a minute!" IH exclaimed, now in his Todd Williams Secret Identity
clothes. "I wonder if another Starfighter'll take out that thing.
There's more than one type of Starfighter in the world! . . ."

IH took out his Incredible-Hero-Cray-Microcomputer and drew up a spacecraft in
midair. It looked like something out of TRON with four blue engines, two
cockpits, and the word "Gunstar" on its side. The only non-drawn thing in
it was a guy who looked like a reptilian negro.

IH climbed inte the top (gunner's) cockpit, then turned to talk to his
navigator.

"How many Starfighters are left?"

"Including yourself?"

"Yes. . . ."

"One!"

"One?!" IH was worried.

"Yes, I've always wanted to have one last desperate battle against incredible
odds!"

"Well, if you want Incredible odds," said the Incredible Hero, ad libbing, "You
came to the right person!"

The Gunstar launched to tackle the Death Star.

#

"Okay, here's the plan," IH described to his navigator as they ascended into
orbit. "We fire at the Death Star to make it mad, then we draw it out
into a chase. We lure it over to the moon, then I'll blast its engines
out of operation, and it'll crash, destroying itself!"

"Brilliant, IH," said the navigator. They went past orbit and were now in
the Death Star's element. "Except for one thing."

"What's that?"

"The Death Star just fired at us."

Sure enough, four emerald drill-shaped beams had come out of the corners of the
dish. They merged at its focus to form one great big gigantic megabeam
which could surely break the Gunstar down into gamma rays.

IH bleated, "There's only one chance!" He stuck his forearm out a window.
His metal bracelet gleamed in the sunlight.

The beam flashed to IH's wrist. And 200 zillion megawatts of pure
destructive power bounced completely off, racing back to its source and blowing
the Death Star to fragments.

"You did it!" yelped the saurian in the back seat. "Great shot kid, that
was one in 216! Now, if we only weren't so low on fuel . . ."

"No problem!" said the Incredible Hero, resetting a few controls and taking the
helm. The ship lurched toward reentry.

"Yep, it's gonna be a sparklin' day," said the sole attendant of a back woods
gas station. "Sparklin'!"

The sparkledness was shattered by the thunderous descent of IH's personal
Gunstar. He landed it on the carport, stuck his head out of the cockpit,
and said, "Fill 'er up, please."

#

In an hour and a half, the tank was full.

"Uh, lessee. That comes to $23,472.95, sir," said the gas pumper.

Our hero whipped out his Incredible Courterfeit Credit Card, put the gas cap
on, and flew off into the distance.

#

[ed: later, in space]

"What are you talking about?" said IH to the narrator. "We aren't even IN
the woods! We're in space! Isn't that right, saurian navigator?"

"Zzzzzzzzzz," the black lizard replied.

"Hey navvy, wake up! We're going to —"

It was a crash

(It was a Gunstar crash)

A system crash

(brought the Cray X-MP down in a Flash (no pun on DC comics intended))

It was a crash

(fortunately their fenders had been made to take the smash)

It was a crash

(It was a Last Stafighter take-off-one-level-of-armor-plating crash)

Wa-ooooooh!

#

(Yes, it was a crash, and the prototype Gunstar (which IH was in (but wasn't in
now (he had been thrown from the wreckage by the force of impact (LUCKy him)))
before) exploded in a puff of logic.)

(Using his super powers, IH naturally escaped unharmed.)

("Well, that takes care of all the space enemies, and it's 4 p.m.. Millionaire
Beer time!")

(With that, IH went home to relax (good place for it (but will he get there
(Only the next poster can answer that (or can he (or she?)?).)?)) and have a
good time (no, message does not repeat).)

#

Anyway, having crashed into Earth (of all places), the Disgustingly Amazingly
Incredible Hero was walking home (or flying home (or whatever)) when a black
gleam caught his eye.

"Ow!" he yelled. "A black gleam just caught my eye, and I can't pry it
loose!"

But it wasn't that type of black gleam. When he looked at it, it was 12
feet (yeeeeearrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh!!) — four meters tall, and had a surface
that looked like K.I.T.T.. It's eyes shined a menacing white, indicating
that it was under the control of its creator.

It was DISGUSTING
BRICK!!!! The only truly indestructable-by-any-means thing in the
known universe! IH knew he was done for.

"I've been waiting a long time for this," said a voice from the increvable
robot. IH tried to find a weakness on him, but there was none. But
SUDDENLY, the Incredible Hero recognized the voice coming from it.

"Yes, that's right!" the robot replied. "This robot is under control by
ME, Mutant, Albert Fossnick, enemy of Rock
Man and Union 76's designer of Truly Indestructable Robots (to counter
Exxon's same project)! This little beauty of a creation you're talking to
cost over 650 points to construct! And now, with it's 150 Strength and 29
Dexterity, with three levels of Growth and +1 with OCV, you're DOOMED,
IH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

#

IH wasn't the least bit impressed with what DB had said. He did, however,
decide that discretion was the better part of valor. As Disgusting Brick
tromped towards him, he took out a small pouch that was inconspicuously tied to
his belt. He then retrieved a squirt gun that was attached to the belt as
well, opened the pouch, and fired into it. The pouch was ripped asunder
as its contents expanded into THE INCREDIBLE HERO JETPACK! IH rapidly
began to strap the pack on as Disgusting Brick bridged the distance between
them. As Disgusting Brick lunged for IH, IH cracked his knuckles and
grabbed for the joystick that controlled the jetpack. He rapidly flicked
3 switches in succession and then pushed the button marked "TURBO" on the
center of the joystick.

'Whew! That was too close!' The jetpack thrust IH far from the clutches
of DB.

IH decided to return home and get a good week's rest. He turned and
headed toward Santa Monica County.

#

Seeing as how IH had never stepped in black gleam, he stepped his drive head
over to the last track and laid down his last 300 dollar bill on "Left Check."

#

'Now then,' IH thought, now lost in a small deserted town on the edge of a
desert, 'Why would Mutant be after me?'

"I was never front! You didn't think an Incredible Jetpack with a
Battlestar Galactica joystick could save you from me, did you?!?"

"How'd you get . . . here . . . so quickly?"

"I took a bus."

'Musta been one of those "Diamond Express" jobs,' the Incredible Hero figured.

The Black Behemoth thumped toward him, covering two meters with each
stride. As IH inspected him, he realized he really was
indestructable. The only one who'd ever defeated him was Tyrannosaurus
Panther, and that was because he had two-ton antimatter claws that could rip
through a neutron star.

And since he was a robot, mind powers wouldn't effect Disgusting Brick, either.

#

However, just for the helluvit, IH reached into his Incredible pocket and
pulled out his Incredible Inflatable Tyrannosaurus Panther and pulled the
cord. It inflated to full size instantly . . . well, almost
instantly. It stood tall and proud between IH and DB.

#

But unfortunately, the antimatter claws were extra, and Disgusting Brick tore
the balloon to shreds.

"Hah!" yelled the Incredible Hero. "I knew you were going to do
that! I hid a piece of Kryptonite in that balloon, and you just exposed
it!"

Disgusting Brick looked disgusted (not that facial expressions can be
well-formed on a robotic head). "What makes you think Kryptonite affects
me? That only affects Kryptonians."

'Hmmm . . .' IH pondered. 'Maybe if I could find some Earthite
I could weaken this fellow.'

Things looked black for IH, especially considering the color of DB's
hull. But, from the conversation about the bus ride and IH's new
inflatable toy Tyrannosaurus Panther balloon, their little spat had
disintegrated.

"Say, Uncredited Hero, how do you carry around all that equipment?"

"Well, it's simple, Mr. Brick. May I call you Disgusting?"

"Call me Mutant. I'll call YOU disgusting."

"It's simple, Mutant. Have you ever read A Mote in God's Eye?"

"No, but I've read all about it."

"The interior lining of my suit is really a portable hole that I found in the
Stones of Narn campaign. [editor's note: this was a 1st Edition AD&D
campaign that Todd Williams ran in the early 1980s.] I just sewed it in,
and ever since I've had a nice little 270-cubic-foot storage compartment.
I also paid the +2x Multiplier and got myself a Cosmic Gadget Pool.

"SO WHAT??!?" came a voice from a 2-meter tall green super-powered brick that
just entered the scene. "TRYING TO PASS YOUR STUFF OFF AS BEING BETTER
THAN EXXON'S, EH, MUTANT? THE
EXPLOITER (MY MASTER) WORKS FOR EXXON, AND HIS CREATIONS ARE TEN
TIMES BETTER THAN YOURS," he lied. "EXXON'D NEVER HIRE THE LIKES OF YOU,
AND NOW I'M GONNA DESTROY YOUR ROBOT!"

"Not again," moaned Disgusting Brick. "That's
Sick Brick. Just because he's
alive and has a mind of his own, he thinks he's better than this robot
here. Well, we'll see about that!"

Disgusting Brick's eyes changed their shine from white to red, indicating that
the robot was now on auto-pilot. The black brick approached to engage the
weaker, but smarter, green one.

Quickly, he looked in his little 270-cubic-foot storage compartment and took
out a menacing container of black paint. Yes, it was a SPRAY can!
He then painted Sick Brick black, but not just any old black . . .
DISGUSTING BLACK!

"Huh?" said Sick Brick. "Wait a nanosecond. I am disgusting
black! AAAAAAAAA!" He then started tearing himself to shreds.
He killed himself.

"How did you do that?" DB inquired.

"It's very simple," said IH. "Sicky over there (now not much of anything)
was programmed with a little eeny bitty flaw. He figured that you, his
only enemy, were the only DISGUSTING BLACK thing in the entire
multiverse. When I painted him and called attention to his color, he
accomplished his mission, which wasn't to destroy you but to destroy the
DISGUSTING BLACK thing. Since he was the closest DISGUSTING BLACK thing
to himself, he destroyed himself. I'm surprised you didn't think of it
yourself."

"All right. You saved my life, so I'll give you one chance. I'm
gonna give you one melee round (or two bulletins) to get out of here. If
I still see you after that amount of time, I'm gonna get you!"

"Thanks!" IH said as he closed his eyes and took off using one of his Flight
devices.

#

That is, he tried to take off using one of his Flight devices, but sadly enough
his jetpack was out of fuel.

Disgusting Brick was counting out loud. He was up to 20.

IH searched through his arsenal, looking for a flying machine of sorts.
He found none.

"40."

IH started running.

"50."

Remembering that he had landed in a small deserted town on the edge of a
desert, he ran into the desert.

#

"Sixty!" bellowed DB. "One minute! Hey, where'd ya go?"

'Good thing I have on my sand-colored costume,' the Inc. Redible Hero mused,
now out of sight of the Disgusting Behemoth.

And the sandworm fled, leaving the Incredible Hero to die of thirstphyxiation.

#

But the Ink Red Able Hero wasn't dead yet. He crawled into his portable
hole and closed it off. At least environmental conditions were stable
here, and he wouldn't die of thirst (but he only had 5-10 minutes of air).

As the Guild arrived, IH noticed that one of the crew of their subnuclear
atomic electromotive force inductive direct memory accessable on-board computer
equipped amphibious turboatmospheric spacecraft had a glucose-coated quartz
corona timepiece that had not been produced since the last historic event of
dehydrated H2O rainwater. Having been so knowledgeable about
the design, IH worked his way in, getting tickets and transportation to the
next 23reformation Motley-Crue concert. As his voyage was underway, he
came upon a strange blue planet covered by gray clouds. After landing in
the desolate brown-grass stucco paradice [sic] called "Los Angeles," he
discovered that it was governed by the almighty emperor EPA of the evil cult
"Calif. Air Resources Board." He knows that this must be DISTROYED.
His plan: use alcohol and make OPEC use their oil for other purposes such as
the manufacture of K-Y jelly and sex-wax. After plotting their
destruction, he entered into a newfound paramilitary organization with the most
intelligent members among the smog, giving them the name S.P.C.A.

#

S.P.C.A.. The

Superhero
Paramilitary
California
Air resources board haters

The EPA man looked up from behind his DM's screen. "So, you want to
destroy us, do you?"

The EPA man continued, undaunted. "I hope you realize that the leaders of
the SPCA have been systematically assassinated."

"By YOU, of course."

"I didn't say that."

"Well, that won't stop me, because I'm THE INCREDIBLE HERO!"

"Oh yeah," said the EPA man, whipping out his unlicensed nuclear accelerator.

"Two can play at that game," IH said as he produced his own.

The two faced each other off with 3D6 AP RKA in hand.

#

There they stood, the two people with blasting entangle attacks. IH was
trying to aim for that perfect shot. So was the EPA man. Both knew
exactly what the other was thinking, so the two guns were constantly pointing
at each other. It looked like a stalemate, when suddenly, IH just
fired. It wasn't an optimum shot, but it worked. The EPA man was
down. As IH came over to him, the EPA man said, "How did you manage
that? I knew what your plans were and was making sure they wouldn't
work. How did you do it?"

"Simple," replied IH. "Have you ever seen the doctor?"

"Who?"

"That's right."

"Doctor That's Right? Sounds like a very odd name."

"No, not doctor that's right, Doctor Who."

"Who?"

"That's right."

"That's what I said, Doctor That's Right."

"No, no, Doctor Who! Who! Who! Who!"

"Um, Doctor Venkman?"

"Not Doctor Venkman, Doctor Who!"

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"I'm talking about Doctor Who."

"Who?"

"Who. Doctor Who."

"Who?"

"That's right."

"What's right?"

"No, not what, Who."

#

"I think I'd better warn you," said the EPA man, "I used to play second base."

"What?"

"That's right."

The Incredible Hero wouldn't stand around playing Abbot and Costello any
longer. He called the KGB and had the EPA man hauled off to Siberia.

"Now Los Angeles can be free under the leadership of the People's Republic of
the SPCA."

Seven American flags popped out from behind IH as a non-corporeal band played
America the Beautiful.

Three days later, IH was in his civvies again. He'd defeated Darth Vader,
WARDROID, the Cheese Monster, the entire population of Monster Island, George
of the Jungle & Shep, the EPA, a Marauder Starfighter, and a moon that
looked like a space station. He'd opened up Earth alliances with Arrakis
and the Guild. He'd even made friends with a disgusting black
superpowered indestructable brick. What could possibly go wrong now?

"Yes, that's right! I Mind-Controlled all the people the Incredible Hero ever
knew until I found one who told me your Secret Identity. Then I
Mind-Controlled this white robed European girl here to DESTROY you!"

Meter Maid was facing Todd, arms outstretched, sleeves flopped open, and a
glazed look in her eye.
"My-master-has-commanded-me-to-destroy-you-Incredible-Hero," she said on a
steady A-flat.

'Oh, no! All my devices are in my suit! I guess I'll just have to
rely on my 23 DEX and my Martial Arts!' Todd thought as he did a Martial
Dodge which increased his DCV to 13.

Needless to say, even with her autofire metersticks, Meter Maid missed.

Unfortunately, it didn't work, because the Controller had never watched the old
Dick Tracy cartoons. So Todd ran at 7" per phase into a nearby alley.

"This looks like a job . . .

F O R T H E I N C R E D I B L E H E R O ! ! !"

The Incredible Hero popped back onto the scene right at the spot he had
left. UNLUCKily for him, though, that was right in front of Meter Maid's
lethal sleeves. Since his phase wouldn't come up for another one or two
seconds, he was helpless.

"All right, MM," commanded the Controller, confident at last that his task
would be done, "Pound him into hamburger!"

"Pound?" Meter Maid winced as she snapped back to consciousness. "Did you
say, POUND??!!?"

#

And with that, the Controller was Newtonned into mince meat as his defenses
were low. With a "Harrumph," MM walked off into the sunset.

IH was feeling happy. He had taken care of just about anything that could
conceivably happen, and had no troubles to worry about, not even a non-working
shift key. [ed: or a non-working hyphen key] So, he went home.

The next day, he received a phone call from the White House. "IH, Dr.
Claw is swiping bottles and selling them for deposit. The economy is
being ruined; can you please help us?"

#

"Don't worry about me, chief," said IH using his Maxwell Smart voice.
"I'm always on duty!"

Just before he hung up, he heard an explosion at the other end of the
line. "The chief should be more careful."

As IH headed off for Dr. Claw's hideout, which was somewhere in the quaint
little town of Nowhere, he heard a telescoping arm from in back of him and felt
a hand grip his shoulder.

He turned around and saw a guy wearing a gray trenchcoat and a 50's style
reporter's hat, with ratty black hair and a great big nose. "You're under
arrest," he said, "For impersonating a super-hero. Go-go Gadget cuffs!"

As the metal cuffs came out of the man's arm and attached to his left wrist, IH
got a good look into the guy's eyes. They each had a little picture of a
squirrel with sinister-looking horns and glowing yellow eyes against a red
backdrop on them.

Slowly, the form of IG made a slow change until he/she/it became the OLD,
brittle form of Meter Maid [who is less than 25 years old]. She then tied
IH to a nearby tree (kinky, huh?) and got into the 800 cc, turbo supercharged,
fuel injected, Die-Hard powered Meter Mobile. She revved the engine and
popped the sucker into gear. She floored it, going at IH at full
speed. She must've been going at LEAST nine m.p.h..

IH flinched in fear. When she got within 10 feet — er, 3 meters of
him, he was sure that he'd only live another five minutes, or until the vehicle
hit him, whichever came first. But then, when it was less than a third of
a meter away from him, his hand found his Incredible Cat Meal/Rope
Remover. Some people call them rats. His faithful pet rodent,
"Spunky the Incredible Cat Meal/Rope Remover," cut through the ropes in
seconds. After all, he hadn't eaten in a year. Before it would've
been too late, IH jumped out of the way. The Meter Mobile, with Meter
Maid inside, struck the tree with Incredible metrical force. The car was
totalled . . . and Meter Maid was changed, too. As she crawled
out of the twisted mass of case hardened aluminum, she had a new form; that of
Marilyn Monroe.

"Do you think anyone could have survived that crash?" asked MM, pointing at the
wrecked Meter Mobile lying in ruins against the tree.

"Oh, good, then you ARE dead."

"Not quite," MM mused, exposing her cuspids. IH froze. Her canines
had grown into little fangs, both of which had a little ruby implanted on the
front.

"Oh, no, it's a Super Friends cheap vampire!"

Twin beams of red energy sprang from her teeth at IH. Fortunately, IH
turned on his [in]famous +4 DCV Martial Dodge Assist Get-Out-of-the-Way rockets
and was able to avoid the fang beams. The energy went on and hit the
tree, turning it into another un-dead.

UNLUCKily, though, this wasn't just another tree, it turned out to be
Tree — Rachael Stowe — and now
she/it was under the control af the Marilyn Monroe Vampire.

"Kill him, my 80 STR slave," said MM. "KILL HIM!"

'Oh oh,' thought IH. 'She musta made her 4x Mind Control roll.'

#

Tree was approaching IH fast. IH was worried; his attacks couldn't
possibly hurt Tree, and if they did they might kill her/it. Then
he got an idea.

"Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok / I sleep all night and I work all day."

"NO! NOT A LUMBERJACK!" screamed Tree as she ran off in fear of message #395
[on the other board].

"Ok, MM," our Hero inquired, "What else do you have up your sleeve?"

#

"An arm!" she said as she threw what turned out to be a plastic, explosive arm
bomb.

"Not a plastic, explosive arm bomb!" said IH.

"Yes, a plastic, explosive arm bomb," said the narrator.

"Let's see you get out of THAT!" MM said as she took out her real arm (or was
it???!?).

"That'll be quite difficult considering that I'm not in your arm, but
I'll do my best. Hmmmmm . . . I wonder what would happen if
. . . nah . . . well, why not?" IH said as he grabbed the
arm and placed it in his black hole type pocket. "Well, if it's as
infinite as everybody says it is [ed: You'd better believe it's infinite! 270
whole cubic feet], there shouldn't be much of a problem. The explosion
will simply keep going until all of its energy is used up."

"What about the energy that will eventually travel through that hole?" asked
MM.

"Which hole? You mean THIS hole?" IH said as he aimed the hole at her and the
arm >>>>>>>>>>>> BLAM!! <<<<<<<<<<<<
exploded, thrusting her into the nearest tree (no, not that Tree) and
killing her.

"Oh," IH said. "That hole."

#

Yes, the arm bomb killed her. Except that she was already dead! She
got up and aimed her vampirism rays at the startled IH. The Incredible
Hero was so startled, in fact, that he only got half his DCV.

The beams caught IH, and IH was turned into a vampire, just as Marilyn
MonVampire was engulfed in a cloud of pink vapor. She promptly
disintegrated.

Batman spritzed the Incredible Hero, bringing him back to the land of the
alive. "Wow, thanks Batman! Golly jeepers!"

"'Golly jeepers?' What kind of talk is that?"

"Normal talk for the Super Friends. That was a Super Friends cheap
vampire, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was." Batman had that krafty look in his eye, the kind you get
after eating cheese & macaroni. "I recognize you. You're
—"

"THE INCREDIBLE HERO!" said IH.

"Yes, him. What comic book company makes you?"

"Me? Why, Williams Comics, of course."

Batman snarled. "Alright, fellas, GET HIM!"

The Incredible Hero recoiled as two beams of heat vision strafed the ground
next to him. Batman and Robin threw their Batarangs with the accuracy of
someone aided by sonar (bats, remember?). A great white shark that had
been Telepathically summoned bounded toward him. And an invisible plane
targeted him and launched two golden lasso rockets.

There was no way out of this now. The Incredible Hero was being set upon
by all of DC Comics.

#

Suddenly, out of nowhere came the X-Men, lead by prof. Charles Xavier.

Wolverine jumped into the battle and promptly Berserked. Cyclops started
throwing optic blasts all over.

Before long, the battle was over. Batman and the rest of DC Comics jammed
off; they took a big beating. IH asked, "Why did you help me?"

"They were DC Comics. We hate them."

High overhead, in the Bat copter:

"Now we have those Marvel jerks," said Batman. "Robin, hand me the Bat
nuke. . . . Whoops, I dropped it. Where are we, anyway?"

"Over Wayne Manor."

Hours later, after the confusion cleared, a young child fired at a security
officer with his carbine cannon. Soon after the fuzz caught the boy, they
went to have a talk with his dad.

"Sir, your son was caught firing a carbine cannon at the security
officer. That security officer was Inspector Gadget. What do you
have to say about that?"

Dad replied, "Neat toy, isn't it?"

#

In any event, DC and MM had been taken care of, so IH was off to find Dr. Claw
(I had to use a period somewhere). He searched hi, he searched lo, he
searched under the apple tree, and finally he realized, 'I'm not going to find
him this way, Let's see, he's selling bottles for deposit. Where would he
do that? At VONS! Of course!'

And with that, IH ran off to Vons, where he arrived after a day (pant pant pant
'Why didn't I fly?'), only to find . . .

#

. . . a 20% off sale! People were all over the place.
There was no way that IH would possibly find Dr. Claw in this
crowd. He decided to go down to the pier and search for Aqua Man.
While strutting down to the pier, he came across an old jr. high school friend
who'd contracted with Marvel comics and was later killed by them: Machine
Man. "Yes, IH, I live forever. I was just resurrected by some
dexter to be your new ally."

"Ok," said IH, "Let's go find Aquaman and kick his butt."

#

"Yes, Incredible Hero," said a voice about two octaves too low, coming from the
MADmobile (which is a combination car/aircraft/submarine). "You go find
Aqua Man and kick his butt. But first, don't forget to take along a
ROCKET!"

The hand sticking out from behind the MAD throne pushed a red button after
mangling Madcat. The front hood of the Madmobile flipped over, revealing
a Heavy Rocket launcher (remember, you can only use those things once, you
can't reload them once they're fired at another car). The rocket ignited
and launched toward Inspector Hero, but the blast melted the Madmobile's front
windshield.

"Oh oh," said Machine Man. "My Radar Sense picks up a rocket heading at
us at 400 inches per segment."

"Hold it, MM. What kind of inches and what kind of
segments? There are at least three or four game systems that use those
terms, and I want to know exactly what you mean."

The rocket was getting closer.

"An inch is one hex, and a segment is one-twelfth of a turn," Machine Man said
quickly.

"Oh, great," said IH, moving his fists to his waist. "THAT tells me a
lot! Now try telling me what you mean in English!"

"Okay, okay," said MM, realizing that the missile was now less than two phases
away. "It's going 1600 miles per hour."

"WHAT!" bellowed Meter Maid. How did she get here? "Did you say,
MILES per HOUR?!?!? *RRRRRAAAAAAARRRRGH!!!**"

She stood right in front of IH and MM (the other MM), and was about to
meter-stick them to death, when she realized that in her Berserk rage she'd
forgotten that she was right in the path of the rocket. The missile
impacted into her, killing her instantly but thus missing and saving IH and
Machine Man.

"Rrreow!" added Madcat as the Madmobile headed off into the sunset (what time
of day was it, anyway?).

#

As IH and Machine Man arrived back in downtown Gotham City, they arrived at
"Bruce's Goily Joint" with real live nude P.C. boards (not to mention
women). They discovered that secretly it was owned by Bruce Wayne
afterwhich they presented their evidence to the Super Friends. Having
this piece of info, they [the Justice Leaguers] discovered Batman's true
identity and revoked his membership in the Super Friends for not allowing
Superman to participate in the 23rd annual B.G-J superhero striptees [sic]
contest. As the ranting ex-Super Friend left in sorrow, he said, "Well,
Robin, it looks like we'll be making more channel 13 reruns next season."

#

"Good!" said Machine Man. "Now let's go kick Aquaman's butt!"

#

The reason everyone should want to kick Aquaman's butt is because he's a
cardboard second-stringer, part of DC's assembly line. Beat up Aqualad,
Aquagirl, and Mera (his cardboard girlfriend) while you're at it. And his
pet seahorse [Storm].

Then again, Machine Man doesn't have the hottest personality in comics,
either. He's currently being drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith, though, so who
cares.

#

Aquaman was floating in the ocean after having his butt kicked when
suddenly, Dr. Claw appeared.

"So, Aquaman, now you're my prisoner so I can spill my guts and then you can
escape and tell the world of my plans!"

Then Claw threw Aquaman in a cell with none other than Inspector Gadget.

Meanwhile, IH was at Vons with the 20% off sale. People were going
wild. IH said, "I had better do something before people riot."

Then a riot broke out below. IH said, "Oh well," grabbed a TV set, and
jammed off. Soon, Batman and Robin had cleaned up the mess they made by
dropping a conventional nuclear weapon on Bruce's house.

Meanwhile, the litt boy was pointing the carbine cannon at
. . .

#

. . . Dr. Claw.

"Sorry, litt boy, but I place a mark of value on my life." And with that,
Dr. Claw pushed a button which caused a standard underlighting-drawn laser beam
to vaporize the "litt boy" (no relation to the Lift Boy).

Meanwhile, Inspector Gadget was talking with Aquaman in his cell. "Well,
hello there, my good man. Can you direct me to MAD headquarters?
You see, I'm the famous Inspector Gadget, and . . ."

"NO!" screamed Aquaman, Clawing (no pun intended) at the bars of the
cell. "DON'T LEAVE ME IN HERE WITH HIM! HE'S WORSE THAN AN
INSURANCE SALESMAN!!"

Meanwhile, the Incredible Hero had run off with a TV set. Actually, he
should have run off with some FOOD, since his Secret Identity as Todd Williams
had about four or five TV sets in his house but never had any food other than
chile and cheese & tortillas. Anyway, he was clear of B & R's
tactical nuke, but thousands of others weren't so Lucky. All the rioters
who stuck around Vons were irradiated to death, and all of Wayne manor
(including the Bat computer and the Dynamic Duo themselves (yaaay!)) was turned
into a slag heap that would make a great origin for the next monster Marvel
Comics dreams up.

"Great!" said Todd, lining up his latest TV set with all his others. "Now
I can play Exodus/Ultima III on six screens at once!"

When suddenly, who should ring the doorbell but his good buddy
Disgusting Brick.

Suddenly the cry of a cat was heard as Dr. Claw smashed Madcat and walked
in. Aquaman had been called down to Hell.

#

In the mean time, Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder had also destroyed the
Batmobile, so they flew on in the Bat copter looking for a new set of
wheels. Just then, they heard a loud, gaseous explosion. Yes, DDK
was on the road again. They landed the Bat copter in front of him,
climbed out, and paid him $20.00 for it. DDK gladly accepted, and walked
the rest of the way to Picwood. B & R got in the car and let Skippy,
the Bat copter pilot, pilot the Bat copter home. They then sped off
toward the pier to join up with IH and Machine Man. Little did they know
that they had just purchased . . . (suspense!)

. . . a FARTMOBILE!!

#

"Darn!" Aquaman said. "It's hotter than Hell here!"

"This IS Hell!" said the Devil (Well, it's Hell. Who do you
expect?) "You'll never see another episode of the Super Friends!
Whaa haa haa!"

"Oh, hello DB," said the Incredible Hero. "Wanna come in and have a
beer?"

"Oh yeah, sure thing!" Disgusting Brick said as he entered, oblivious to the
fact that beer would have no effect on his robotic body at all.

"There's just one thing. No beer in the house."

DB (or, really, Mutant) thought for a second. "Don't worry, I'll go pick
some up!" he said, exited, and leapt across town on his mighty legs looking for
the Schlitz factory so that he could pick it up.

He tuned in, and realized that once again he'd missed the opening title
sequence. Oh well, he was usually late anyway. The scene showed IG
trapped in a cell with a big hole in the floor that lead [sic] down to Hell.

'Oh oh,' thought the Increvable Hero. 'That looks like Aquaman was
trapped in a jail cell with the Inspector, decided that anything was better
than this, played with the Gadget dildo, and would up in Hell, then Batman and
Robin came to rescue him in DDK's Fartmobile! Ain't I a good guesser?'

Well, it looked like IH would have to rescue those DC creeps after all they did
to — er, for him. After all, if he didn't, he wouldn't get to kick
Aquaman's butt! He took the joystick from his VIC-20 and caressed it
hornily. Three seconds later, he rolled three "1"s and a fiery crack
opened up in the earth beneath his feet, swallowing him down to Hades.
Now he could look for B, R, & A.

#

Yes, Batman had forgotten to disengage the joystick (the little device that
looks like a lighter in DDK's car, but that also acts as a microphone to
communicate with the passengers in the back seat). Robin had had fun
experimenting with the joystick and discovering two of the many "Autopilot"
modes; he had not yet figured out what the four buttons on the sides of the
joystick were for. He knew that they controlled the windows when used in
conjunction with moving the joystick up and down, but he hadn't yet figured out
how to use the ejector seats by using the buttons in conjunction with the
numeric (and * and #) keypad. In fact, he had just started thinking about
trying to use it as a telephone . . .

#

. . . exploded.

#

Aquaman realized that he had been down in Hell for almost an hour. He
also realized that he hadn't had any water in that time.

As he was dying, he yelled, "Water, water . . . wat . . .
er <plop>"

Meanwhile, Bat Guano was talking to a nice looking guy with horns (horny,
no?). They made a deal that would keep people from accusing him of being
gay.

IH, meanwhile, was back home (remember?) [no, I don't], while IG used his
"Go-go Gadget laser" to escape the MAD escape-proof cell. Dr. Claw flew
off, muttering, "I'll get you next time, Gadget! Next . . .
time . . ." with a "Mreeeowww!" from insane cat.

"Oh, forget it!" Robin said, and shot him. Batman was so stunned that
Robin had to shoot him again before he would fall down.

'Good,' thought Robin. 'Well, it's back to the old 1960's reruns again!'

#

IH was back home, watching TV. DB was going out to get some Schlitz, but
ran into trouble, complete with antimatter CLAWs (IH was watching Inspector
Gadget, remember?). DB was never heard from again.

IH, meanwhile, suddenly remembered that he had not stopped Dr. Claw from
swiping soda bottles for refund. 'Well,' he thought, 'How am I supposed
to find him?'

Then he knew:
Mind Scan Man. Yes, MSM,
the only person in the world with the uncanny ability locate anyone he had met
before. 'Oh well, I doubt MSM has met Dr. Claw, so that's out of the
question. Maybe I should try Safeway.'

Meanwhile, the viewers at home saw the back of a chair, with an iron glove
stroking a cat, saying, "You mean the Unsafe way, don't you?' in a mild
pitched, not super deep voice.

#

Then IH remembered. 'Mind Scan Man doesn't have to know the person!
All he would need is maybe an exact description of that person or a copy of his
EEG.'

IH turned off IG, walked out through the Disgusting Brick shaped hole in his
wall, and LUCKily bumped into MSM 30 seconds later. "Mind Scan Man," he
exclaimed, "I need you to find Dr. Claw."

"You don't know how lucky you are that I'm here," MSM said. "My base of
operations is supposed to be in Chicago! I just came down here for a
Schlitz —"

He was cut off by a completely mangled black superpowered robot brick sailing
through the air due to the knockback of a particular set of antimatter
claws. The deceased Disgusting Brick was still carrying the building he'd
grabbed when he "went out to pick up a beer." A 14-oz. can of Schlitz
rolled out of a window; MSM picked it up, opened it, and started drinking.

"As I was saying," continued MSM between sips, "Very lucky. Uh, I'm not
familiar with this Dr. Claw person."

"WHAT?!?!?" cried IH. "DON'T YOU WATCH INSPECTOR GADGET?!?"

"No, as a matter of fact, my TV set doesn't go up to channel 13. Can you
describe him to me in exact detail?"

"Not much to go on; over seven percent of the population has two arms.
Anyway, you wouldn't happen to have a copy of his EEG, would you?"

IH pulled out his
Incredible-Hero-Official-Copy-Of-Doctor-Claw's-Electro-Encephalogram.

"Ah." MSM studied it for a few seconds, then closed his eyes. He placed
both hands on his temples, then moved them away as his concentration
began. Rings of white energy beeped out from his head like [the late]
Aquaman's aquatic Telepathy, and scanned the entire county of Santa Monica for
Claw's presence.

"Got him!" he said. That meant he'd picked up Dr. Claw somewhere in his
scanning range. "Now to pinpoint him . . ." The white
rings got thicker and started glowing a bit (like underlighting), and the
beeping got louder. "He's in the Madmobile, in a parking lot in North
Hollywood." He wrote down the exact address, and gave it to the
Incredible Hero.

"Thanks," said IH. "I HAVEN'T A MOMENT TO LOSE!"

#

[ed.: arriving at the address . . .]

One of Dr. Claw's agents snuk up behind the Incredible Hero and tried to pick
his pocket. However, IH picked just that moment to say, "Ah, it's a
beautiful day," stretch, and accidentally activate his
Incredible-Hero-Automatic-Cape-Inflator, which inflatored his cape and knocked
the enemy agent back 7" into a brick wall, where he took 7D6 of physical normal
damage.

"Now to finish off Dr. Claw once and for all!" IH exclaimed, lining up the
Madmobile in his sights. He threw one of his little concentrated tablets,
squirted water at it with his Incredible water pistol, and watched it expand
into his Incredible Hero Instant Breakfast and make a big dent in Dr. Claw's
car/plane/sub.

But another agent was on a rooftop, aiming a heavy Blaster Gun that was mounted
on a tripod at our hero. And IH missed his perception roll (it had a lot
of minuses) and didn't buy Danger Sense this time. "Goodbye, Hero!"
gloated the agent.

When suddenly, a big yellow-orange dog ran up from behind and knocked
the agent off the side of the building. A disembodied little-girlish
voice said, "Good work, Brain!"

The agent landed smack-dab on the roof of the Madmobile, upsetting Dr. Claw's
latest ploy. "He should be more careful!" commented an ignorant IH.

"There's nothing that can save you from me now!" the Ink Red Able Hero cried as
he rushed up to the Madmobile. Running around to the driver's side (at 7"
per phase), he shoveled the agent off the roof and pried open the door with his
Incrdible Hero +1x Martial Arts Multiplier. "Now," he chanted, grabbing
the helpless driver's chair (it was the driver that was helpless, not the
chair), "I'm finally going to get to look at your face!"

He turned the chair around and gaped. "It's YOU," he cried. "MERV
GRIFFIN!"

#

My name is not Merv Griffin,
My name is NOT Merv Griffin,
My name is not Merv Griffin,
My real name is GEORGE!

With that, Dr. George Claw gave IH a huge punch, knocking him back into the
air. The Madmobile took off, never to be seen again (at least not without
major remodeling).

#

Unfortunately, the Incredible Hero'd just gotten hit by a Clawed metal gauntlet
and was busy taking knockback.

"Let's see," he said, rolling 2D6 as he flew backwards through the air.
"Five inches."

"INCH?" wailed the voice of a certain spirit that would surely haunt the
unmetric world for all eternity. "Did you say —"

"Oh, shut up, Meter Maid! Not awful inches, CHAMPIONStm
inches!"

With that, the background changed to a commercial.

"Yes, Champions," said IH, "The superhero role-playing game! In this
game, you control the actions of a daring adventurer finding his way though New
York City that has been enchanted with treacherous villains and newspaper
publishers!

"CHAMPIONS! The game where one inch is two meters long and a hex is an
inch on a side! CHAMPIONS! Where normals do 2D6 attacks, but
supertypes frequently do 10D6! CHAMPIONS! The game with DEX rolls
— arrgh!"

Yes, friends, Travellin' Tommy had returned to haunt the Increvable Hero.

#

"Hi, Tommy. How are you?"

"Oh, fine. I just got back from visiting my dead mother, getting attacked
by the Cheese Monster, waking up from a bad dream, getting a calculator that
did a bunch of nice things, going back in time and getting a calculator that
was completely different, winding up in Vietnam, running into the Mafia,
winding up in the future, being filmed on Candid Camera, fighting Fearless Fred
and Winston Churchill, things like that, nothing much."

Unfortunately, the IH was snoring from boredom (he had read the journal reports
long ago and knew all this), so Tommy left.

When IH woke up, he went downtown — to look for a job. Then he hung
out in front of the drug store. When . . .

Editor's notes from 2015:

The Incredible Hero was a Champions character
created by Todd R. Williams. It was a "Me Character," a character that was
supposed to be the player as he was in real life, but with super powers. Like
Batman on The Super Friends, most of his "powers" derived from the
dizzying array of gadgets he carried with him, including his 8D6 Instant
Breakfast Blast (a dehydrated meal that he'd throw at his opponent, followed by
a squirt of water from a squirt gun which would cause the meal to instantly
expand to full size while in flight).

"32D6 Area Effect attack" is terminology from
Champions, the super-hero role-playing game. Most
of the oddball terminology throughout this piece — Missile Deflection,
Energy Blasts, gadget points, doing a half move, etc. — comes from
Champions.

"And we really really mean it this time, for sure! Part IX" came from a
regular feature of Cracked magazine (back when it was still a magazine)
called "The Cracked Lens." When they published "The Last of the Cracked Lens,"
readers wrote in demanding the column be continued, so next month's was "The
Very Last of the Cracked Lens." Undaunted, more reader mail poured in, so the
month after we got "The Very Very Last of the Cracked Lens." By the time I got
hold of an issue, they were up to "Absolutely Positively Unquestionably
Undeniably the Very Very Very Last of the Cracked Lens, and We Really Really
Mean It This Time, For Sure! Part IX."

Strunk & White tell you not to use "suddenly," as it's too
cliché. So, naturally, I underlined every occurrence of suddenly in this
story for extra emphasis.

The old Arduin Dungeon #1 adventure featured 8 magic items and 8
monsters, each printed on a handy-dandy cut-out card for your convenience. An
image of the 8 monster cards can be found
here. One of these was the Wardroid, a bug-eyed soldier robot on tank
treads. The stats shown in this story for this monster were copied from the
back of the card. Mostly.

IH forgetting to use his hands to open his car door comes from the
laserdisc arcade game Cliff Hanger, itself a repackaging of animation
from The Castle of Cagliostro and Mystery of Mamo. In this game,
instead of having a "sword" or "fire" button as in Dragon's Lair or Space Ace,
you had a button for "hands" and a button for "feet." You would die if you
didn't push the "hands" button when you reached your car.

The fact that IH's decoy was manufactured by Acme was, of course, a
reference to Wile E. Coyote's favorite supply company.

The "BR" who ran on ROM was Bob Reite. Back before you kids these days had
the Internet, we had dial-in Bulletin Board Servces (BBSes). You hooked your
analog modem to the phone jack, dialed the phone number for the BBS, and (if
the line wasn't busy) you connected and could read posts from others or post
messages of your own. The Serial Tree Board was one such BBS that operated in
the Santa Monica, California area. So was BR's BBS. I have no memory of
"Rachael," though.

REM was the initials of Roger E. Murray, one of our buddies at the time.
It was also the BASIC statement for REMark. His initials make a guest
appearance here as the dreaded Real Estate Man.

The hand grenade under the glove was inspired by Death Race
2000. (The original Roger Corman production starring David Carradine. Not
the remake.)

The Cheese Monster came from an off-the-cuff quip in the Champions
rules about wanton property damage: "Take care the next time one of the heroes
throws a bus at the cheese monster." It actually appeared in earlier
episodes of IH that were not captured here. Said earlier episodes long ago
vanished into the Akashic plane when Michael Gersten erased the earlier posts
on the Serial Tree Board (accidentally or on purpose, I can't remember).

Joy was a girl I met up at ISOMATA in the summer of 1982, and whom I was
madly infatuated with because not only did I get to kiss her — which was
a big enough deal at the time — but she was also the first girl who
didn't lose interest in me the day after. Sadly, this level of infatuation
wasn't mutual. C'est la vie.

"That left turn on Sunset" was a reference to Sunset Boulevard, which ran
nearby.

"There were no monsers to the west!" was a reference to Bill,
the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison. The original went something like
"There was death to the north, death to the west, death to the east, death
death death. You know what that means?" "No." "There was no death to the
south!"

"IH thought about something. This was a long, slow process," was a
reference to an episode of George of the Jungle. "George have to think!"
(Narrator: "This was a long, slow process.") Michael Gersten originally
misremembered this line as "This was a long and painful process." Note the
"watch out for that tree" line immediately following.

O.J. Simpson and Samsonite luggage appear together here, because the two
appeared together in a TV commercial highlighting his abilities as a running
back. Apparently, he could dodge luggage better than he could dodge a grand
jury.

A 707 with the initials KAL on the side was a misremembering of Korean
Airlines flight 007, a Boeing 747 that was shot down by a Soviet fighter plane
on Andropov's watch.

The Controller was one of Michael Gersten's Champions characters.
He wanted to make a character whose main superpower was Mind Control, so what
better secret identity for him than an Air Traffic Controller?

Ronald Reagan actually did fire about 9/10 of the country's Air Traffic
Controllers when they went on strike in 1981. He replaced them with military
Air Traffic Controllers, who couldn't strike.

The EPA man who didn't say the magic word was, of course, a reference to
Ghøstbusters.

In [Advanced] Dungeons & Dragons, the writing fades from a magical
scroll as you read it. This is how they keep the same scroll from being used
more than once.

"YOHO" is from Scott Adams' Pirate's Adventure. It serves the same
role there that "xyzzy" and "plugh" did in Crowther & Woods' original
Colossal Cave adventure. When you say it, the game replies "Everything
spins around and suddenly I'm elsewhere," and you teleport to a different room
on the game map.

Nebraska Turd Birds are little statues of a bird, which use horse manure
for the bird's body. They were sold at gas stations, and were popular with
Nebraska Cornhuskers football fans.

The quasi-sexual fascination with energy blasts can trace its origins to
a bull session I had with Todd Williams. You see, Marvel Comics published a
title called "What If?", with issues like "What if the Hulk had Bruce Banner's
intelligence?" or "What if Peter Parker's uncle Ben had lived?". After
bandying about some of these deep, profound what-if questions, Todd jokingly
proposed, "What if Spider-Man had an energy blast?". It struck me as incredibly
funny. O what deep, profound changes would happen in the Marvel universe if
Spider-Man ... fired energy blasts from his hands. This led to me creating a
persona on Michael Gersten's Serial Tree Board named "The Guy Who Thinks That
Everyone Should Have an Energy Blast," whose every posts was always a single
sentence of the form "What if ________ had an energy blast?". For some reason,
one of the other people who visited the Serial Tree Board decided that "energy
blast" was a euphemism for orgasm or something.

Why was a six-foot-high piece of toast probably Texas toast? Because
enverything's big in Texas!

"Half a ton of angry pot roast" comes from Tom Lehrer's song "In Old
Mexico." Ferdinand is, of course, a reference to the children's story about a
pacifist bull who only wanted to smell the flowers.

"Dig Dug Killer" (DDK) was Marc Krieger's nickname. He discovered a way to
make a Dig Dug arcade machine hang, by killing the last monster in a way that
made the "remaining monsters" counter decrement twice and wrap around to
255.

"Benny Hill" here refers not to the low-brow British comedian, but to the
nome de guerre of one of the locals who posted to either the Serial Tree Board
or BR's BBS or The Palantir.

The Twin Towers here refers to the Paul Hastings/City National skyscrapers
in downtown Los Angeles. Unlike Manhattan's Twin Towers, this pair of buildings
is still standing.

Sparky Starks' StarFighter was perhaps my favorite game for the
TRS-80. Read all about this immortal classic here:
http://www.trs-80.org/starfighter
. Apparently, the producers of the movie The Last Starfighter had to
buy the rights to use the name "Starfighter" from Sparky Starks.

The Closing Ceremonies laser show refers to the 1984 summer Olympics in
Los Angeles. I was lucky enough to be among the 1000 chorusters in the Opening
Ceremonies, but didn't quite make the cut for the 250-voice choir in the
Closing Ceremonies. Which is too bad, because there was this really cute and
friendly girl in the Opening Ceremonies chorus named Linda whom I never got the
phone number of.

Todd Williams's original post, in which IH missile-deflecting the Death
Star beam, was lost. What you see here is my personal reconstruction, from
memory, of what he'd posted. I did change one thing, though: the original said
"Great shot kid, that was one in 256!". I changed it to 216 because Todd told
me his intention was to show the odds of rolling a 3 on 3d6.

"and have a good time (no, message does not repeat)." is a reference to
the shipwide announcement by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, which occurred while
Arthur Dent was getting a Babel fish shoved into his ear.

K.I.T.T. is the Knight Industries Two Thousand, the talking black Pontiac
Trans-Am in Knight Rider.

A joystick with a "TURBO" button in the center comes from the Vipers in the
original 1978 Battlestar Galactica.

I have no idea what "Left Check" refers to.

"Diamond Express" were the Santa Monica city express busses that used the
diamond (carpool) lane on the freeway.

I had not read A Mote in God's Eye at the time I wrote this, and had
no idea what it was about. Though now that I think about it, the Incredible
Hero's ability to whip up world-altering gadgets in the blink of an eye
is awfully reminiscent of the Brown Moties.

"I'd better go save my good buddy Disgusting Brick" came from a
Champions scanario involving my Sick Brick character, and a character
that Ramin Shokrizade had specifically engineered to take down Sick Brick named
"Sick Kick." Sick Brick was nominally a villain, but he was a good guy for this
scenario, and Michael Gersten had taken over playing Sick Kick and had him team
up with Sick Brick; but to no avail. For you see, Ramin was playing a
supervillain with Mind Control powers, and he controlled Sick Kick's mind and
told him to attack Sick Brick to the best of his ability. Meanwhile, I was
playing either Tracer or Havok, and Todd (who was GM) poked fun at my efforts
by having my character say "I'd better go save my good buddy Sick Brick!".

Good thing IH found his towel inside his portable hole. It's always a good
idea to know where your towel is at.

"Hold everything! ... Calling Dick Tracy" came from The Dick Tracy
Show, a 1961 cartoon series loosely based on the comic strip. It featured
various ethinc stereotypes doing Dick Tracy's dirty work for them. Once an
episode, when the bad guys were closing in for the kill, the episode's hero
would shout "Hold everything!" and all the incoming villains would screech to a
halt in mid-air. Then, with everyone frozen in place, the hero would flip open
his two-way wrist radio and calmly say "Calling Dick Tracy, calling Dick
Tracy."

The little cliffhanger-esque stanza ending in "Nyaaah, he don't know me
vewy well, do he?" came from the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Hare Trigger." At the end,
when Bugs is tied up in a deathtrap, the narrator croons, "Is this the end of
Bugs Bunny? Will our hero be dashed to bits on the jagged rocks below?" Then
Bugs walks onto the screen, his adversary helplessly in tow, and continues:
"Is he to be doomed to utter destruction? Will he be rendered non compos
mentis? ... Nyaaah, he don't know me vewy well, do he!"

If memory serves me, message #395, on "another" of the Serial Tree Board's
boards, consisted of "I'm a lumberjack and I'm". Message #396 consisted of "Ok,
I sleep all night and I". Message #397 consisted of "Work all day." Each post
having been made by a different person.

"Underlighting-drawn laser" refers to a trick used in a lot of 1980s
cartoons to render glowing things. Instead of having an artist try to draw a
glow effect by hand, the animators cut out a hole in the background the same
shape as the thing to be shown (e.g. in the shape of a laser beam), and then
shine a light up through the platform beneath it when they capture the
frame on film. The result can be seen in Space Ace's laser gun, in just about
every shot fired on The Transformers Generation 1, and in scores of
other cartoons.

"Lift Boy" is the title of a Benjamin Britten choral piece. (Words from the
Robert Graves poem "Tail Piece: A Song to Make You and Me Laugh.") I sang it
with at least two different choruses in my Junior High and High School
years.

It is not known whether the capitalization in "thousands of others weren't
so Lucky" was a sly reference to Lucky supermarkets — considering that
part of the story takes place at Vons.

In the TRS-80 graphical (!) adventure game Asylum, if you type "LOOK
UP", a piano falls on your head and kills you. See? You're not paranoid, they
really are out to get you!

"0 0 0 Destruct 0" was the final code to initiate the 30-second countdown
to self-destruction on the NCC-1701 Enterprise, as established in "Let This Be
Your Last Battlefield" and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

"Batman was so stunned that Robin had to shoot him again before he would
fall down." was a reference to (I believe) the end of a chapter in Life, the
Universe, and Everything.

"My Name Is Not Merv Griffin" was a song by Gary Muller, played on the Dr.
Demento show as the result of a listening-audience-wide contest in 1982. You
can read the lyrics, and might be able to give a listen,
here.

Travellin' Tommy was a continuing story on BR's BBS or the Palantir. It
pre-dated the Incredible Hero, and partly served as the inspiration for
it.

The last line is a reference to part of the Cheech & Chong sketch
"Sister Mary Elephant," in which Tommy Chong, playing the part of a bored
Catholic school student, read his report aloud as to what he did on his summer
vacation. The first three days were the same: Get up, go downtown to look for
a job, then hang out in front of the drug store. But on the fourth day, he
got a job: keeping people from hanging out in front of the drug
store.